Indian police hunt for two masked men in connection with Bathinda attack

Indian police were on Thursday (13) looking for two masked men suspected of the pre-dawn killing four troops at an army base near the Pakistani border.

The incident occurred Wednesday (12) morning at the Bathinda military installation in Punjab, a northern state where tensions have been high due to the revival of a separatist movement.

On the morning of the incident, India's military claimed that four troops had been shot in their sleep, without providing any further details or noting whether any attackers remained at large.

A police report quoting an army major who claimed to have witnessed the attack, aid two unidentified men had entered the highly guarded outpost with their faces covered.

One was carrying a rifle reported missing from the base two days earlier, the report said, and the duo fled towards a forest near the barracks after the attack.

Police were scanning CCTV footage and a search for the suspects was underway, local media reports said Thursday.

Another soldier was found dead by apparent suicide at the same military station on the same day as the attack, but there was no connection with Wednesday's shooting, the army said in a statement.

Punjab has been on edge since authorities launched a manhunt for firebrand Sikh separatist preacher Amritpal Singh last month.

Singh has rallied a huge following in recent months by demanding the creation of Khalistan, a separate Sikh homeland, the struggle for which sparked deadly violence in Punjab in the 1980s and 1990s.

He remains at large despite a huge dragnet involving thousands of police officers and a statewide internet shutdown that lasted for several days.

Meanwhile, another soldier died of a gunshot wound at a military base in Punjab, but it was not related to the killing of four soldiers, the Indian army said.

The soldier at Bathinda Military Station on Wednesday evening was thought to have shot himself, a statement said.

"There is no connection whatsoever" to the killing of four soldiers by unknown attackers 12 hours earlier, it added.

"The soldier was on sentry duty with his service weapon. The weapon and cartridge case from the same weapon was found next to the soldier," the statement said.

The soldier, who had returned from leave on April 11, was rushed to a military hospital, where he died of his injuries, it added.

State police said it was "not a terror attack".

(Agencies)